1. Ships is the easiest and best source of crystals and zetas in the game. Learn them quick.
2. Put 5 dot mods on all pilots. Best gear you can afford on starters. G12 hopefully. I still use g8-10 pilots off the bench and can take #1 so those are not as important.
3. GP means nothing. I can beat 410k fleets with a 360k fleet.
4. Get Hounds Tooth Asap. Falcon eventually. Max Thrawn for sure and probably Akbar, depending on where meta goes soon.
5. Falcon fleets are beatable without Falcon. Learn the ways and get the fleet ready. You can climb to top 5 without Falcon still.

If it can't be interpreted as a way to measure success/failure, what's the point of it being there?

I mean it's nice to use as a baseline to have a pretty solid idea of where you sit but there are many other things to look at before you decide who to attack.

Exactly. Just like in the regular part of the game, just because you throw your highest GP units on a team together doesn't mean they will perform well together. You have to consider which ships synergize with other ships and which capital ships provide benefits with the other ships, etc... and then there's reinforcement abilities.

For example, a strong basic squad usually would include a unit that can inflict target lock like Vader or Imperial TIE Fighter(since your attacks are usually stronger when then unit you're attacking has target lock inflicted on them), and a taunting tank like Biggs or Hound's Tooth that have methods to recover their protection.

THEN the gear levels, star level, ability levels of the pilots affect how strong each ship is. There's a lot going on there.

If it can't be interpreted as a way to measure success/failure, what's the point of it being there?

It's a valid question, I suppose the answer is because GP is not subjective. It's a measure of how close to max your unit is. Relating GP to actual power or ability would require decisions on effectiveness, and would have to constantly change as the game changes. Way too much work.

If it can't be interpreted as a way to measure success/failure, what's the point of it being there?

GP was introduced into the game when Territory Battles got introduced and you needed the GP from your characters/ships to get enough territory points and collect stars on the map for better rewards at the end. Outside of TB the whole GP thing is pretty flawed with 2 main problems:
1) GP is not a really good inidcator of a squads strength (simple example: a squad full of characters where each one has 4 or 5 abilities (= high GP) can be easily beaten by a squad that doesn't have a lot of abilities (= lower GP) but has some good synergy).
2) GP "fluff" is still a problem. Old players that upgraded all their crappy/useless chars to a certain lvl (g7 lvl 53 with 5 dot mods was the way to go) in order to get enough territory points in TB for higher rewards now have a lot of "fluff" in their roster that they can't get rid off which might be a problem for GA matchups that are just taking the total GP into account. Newer players are not upgrading most of their chars to avoid building up that "fluff", they can just go for the useful chars and build them up to have a stronger roster and have an advantage in GA.

Pilot gp increases ship power that in turn increases ship stats, unless you c a n explain otherwise that's how it works according to the devs

Mods are way different though. There are zero variables with pilots affecting ship stats. You put a piece a gear on a pilot and I put a piece of gear on a pilot, our ships are affected exactly the same. You put a mod on a toon and I put a mod on a toon and there will almost certainly be vastly different results.

Basically, get Houndstooth or don't bother with Fleet. That's my experience. Fleet is very much a dead game mode for me personally. I struggle to juggle the farming requirements of characters and never find time for fleet. Houndstooth is on a great node with Jango Fett, my problem is I already have 5 maxed Bounty Hunters so never needed to farm Jango so doesn't fit with my plans, the more Revans, Padmes etc come the game the further and further away fleet slips.

I chased a fleet meta once (Bugs) and by the time I got there the meta was over and Houndstooth came in and ruined it for me, given this chase had also set me back in my character farms for pretty much no return I gave up on fleet entirely. If you can't get top 50 it's pointless and I can no longer get into the top 50 because it's all Houndstooth.

That's ships. A bitter view maybe but hey, we all have our wounds with this game.

To give a slightly more “positive” viewpoint
It’s far easier to gear up a couple of decent fleets than it is to stay current in Arena!
—> To the negative comment above, the Geos are an awesome 2nd Fleet, PLUS remember that for LSTB and DSTB you need at least 1 Lightside and Darkside Fleet. Also for TWar and GA you are killing yourself if you don’t have 1 for defence and 1 for attack.

I

G2000, HTooth, Xanadu Blood — will also net you Droideka, Poggle and Jango as bonuses!

To give a slightly more “positive” viewpoint
It’s far easier to gear up a couple of decent fleets than it is to stay current in Arena!

Apologies for the negativity, the game community has enough of that already, just find fleet had no place in my SWGoH life after the mad Geo rush. I've never chased the Meta and the one time I did, I kinda got burned. That said though, you make a VERY valid point actually. Never looked at it like that! Staying relevant in Arena is tons of work. Not that I am relevant there either, I avg. 350.

Also, not saying my Geos don't have a use, of course they do just not in arena so don't net me much in terms of Crystal goodness.

Hound's Tooth and Han's Millennium Falcon are your long-term goals in fleet. Early on, the single best ship you can get is KRU's (Kylo Ren Unmasked) TIE Silencer. Other pilots worth investing in are Biggs, Imp TIE Pilot, Vader, and of course the Phoenix squad. Also Tarkin and Ackbar for their capital ships.

Most players focus on a dark side fleet under Tarkin's Executrix until they can beat tier 3 of the ship ability mat challenge, which awards zeta mats. From that point on, it makes sense to slowly build up Ackbar's Home One and prepare to switch to a rebel fleet once you've unlocked Han's Falcon.

I chased a fleet meta once (Bugs) and by the time I got there the meta was over and Houndstooth came in and ruined it for me, given this chase had also set me back in my character farms for pretty much no return I gave up on fleet entirely. If you can't get top 50 it's pointless and I can no longer get into the top 50 because it's all Houndstooth.

That's ships. A bitter view maybe but hey, we all have our wounds with this game.

You've had months and months and months to farm Hound's Tooth. If you still don't have it, that's on you at this point.

If your opponent has Hounds Tooth or Han's Falcon, and you don't, then you're dead. Don't bother.

This is wrong and there's lots of posts on the forums explaining why.

Han's Falcon and Hound's Tooth are super prevalent higher in ranks, but it isn't completely impossible to climb without them. You just have to play a bit more strategically than the ones that do have them. It is a bit of a challenge though... I know first hand. I'm in an older shard so most people have them, but I still manage to get crystal payouts with fleet without either.

I chased a fleet meta once (Bugs) and by the time I got there the meta was over and Houndstooth came in and ruined it for me, given this chase had also set me back in my character farms for pretty much no return I gave up on fleet entirely. If you can't get top 50 it's pointless and I can no longer get into the top 50 because it's all Houndstooth.

That's ships. A bitter view maybe but hey, we all have our wounds with this game.

You've had months and months and months to farm Hound's Tooth. If you still don't have it, that's on you at this point.

Thanks for pointing that out, and I think you've missed the entire point where I stated Fleet is a dead game mode to me. I'm not actively farming nor participating in ships. The OP wanted a strategy, I give my somewhat bitter opinion to point out that Hounds Tooth is where it's at in Fleet, not sure where you think your response to me has any merit really.

For a new player, you will want to star up 5 light side ships and 5 dark side ships and gear their pilots for challenges.
After that, you can turn your focus to what wins in arena. The most important ships in arena (with one exception) are tanks, because they can taunt and absorb damage. And there are really only 3 good tanks in fleet: Hounds Tooth (#1 by far since it constantly regenerates protection when hit), Biggs’ X-Wing (which regenerates protection and taunts whenever an enemy gets target locked), and Sun Fac (which taunts whenever a buffed ship takes a turn).
Due to the current fleet meta, which is likely to stay a while because fleet metas change much more slowly than arena metas, the best dark side ships to prepare are Hounds Tooth, Xanadu Blood, Slave 1, IG-2000 (those 4 are needed to unlock Han’s Millenium Falcon), and TIE Advanced. The best light side ships to prepare are Biggs’ X-Wing, Ghost, Phantom, Cassian’s U-Wing, & Bistan’s U-Wing (these ships can also be used to unlock Chimera).

So my 'bad advice' the point of which is, he should focus on Hounds Tooth is wrong? That was the whole point of my rambling that if he doesn't he will, like me, have a VERY difficult time of it otherwise.